That, however, these circles rapidly diminished in the Netherlands is shown by Busken-Huet’s discussion (Het Land van Rembrandt, II, chaps, III and IV). Nevertheless, Groen van Prinsterer says (Handboek der geschiedenis van het vaderland, third edition, par. 303, note, p. 254), “De Nederlanders verkoopen veel en verbruiken wenig,” even of the time after the Peace of Westphalia. ↩
For England, for instance, a petition of an aristocratic Royalist (quoted in Ranke, Englische Geschichte, IV, p. 197) presented after the entry of Charles II into London, advocated a legal prohibition of the acquisition of landed estates by bourgeois capital, which should thereby be forced to find employment in trade. The class of Dutch regents was distinguished as an estate from the bourgeois patricians of the cities by the purchase of landed estates. See the complaints, cited by Fruin, Tien jaren uit den tachtigjarigen oorlog, of the year 1652, that the regents have become landlords and are no longer merchants. To be sure these circles had never been at bottom strictly Calvinistic. And the notorious scramble for membership in the nobility and titles in large parts of the Dutch middle class in the second half of the seventeenth century in itself shows that at least for this period the contrast between English and Dutch conditions must be accepted with caution. In this case the power of hereditary moneyed property broke through the ascetic spirit. ↩
Upon the strong movement for bourgeois capital to buy English landed estates followed the great period of prosperity of English agriculture. ↩
Even down into this century Anglican landlords have often refused to accept Nonconformists as tenants. At the present time the two parties of the Church are of approximately equal numbers, while in earlier times the Nonconformists were always in the minority. ↩
H. Levy (article in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, XLVI, p. 605) rightly notes that according to the native character of the English people, as seen from numerous of its traits, they were, if anything, less disposed to welcome an ascetic ethic and the middle-class virtues than other peoples. A hearty and unrestrained enjoyment of life was, and is, one of their fundamental traits. The power of Puritan asceticism at the time of its predominance is shown most strikingly in the astonishing degree to which this trait of character was brought under discipline among its adherents. ↩
This contrast recurs continually in Doyle’s presentation. In the attitude of the Puritan to everything the religious motive always played an important part (not always, of course, the sole important one). The colony (under Winthrop’s leadership) was inclined to permit the settlement of gentlemen in Massachusetts, even an upper house with a hereditary nobility, if only the gentlemen would adhere to the Church. The colony remained closed for the sake of Church discipline. The colonization of New Hampshire and Maine was carried out by large Anglican merchants, who laid out large stock-raising plantations. Between them and the Puritans there was very little social connection. There were complaints over the strong greed for profits of the New Englanders as early as 1632 (see Weeden’s Economic and Social History of New England, I, p. 125). ↩
This is noted by Petty (Political Arithmetick), and all the contemporary sources without exception speak in particular of the Puritan sectarians, Baptists, Quakers, Mennonites, etc., as belonging partly to a propertyless class, partly to one of small capitalists, and contrast them both with the great merchant aristocracy and the financial adventurers. But it was from just this small capitalist class, and not from the great financial magnates, monopolists, Government contractors, lenders to the King, colonial entrepreneurs, promoters, etc., that there originated what was characteristic of Occidental capitalism: the middle-class organization of industrial labour on the basis of private property (see Unwin, Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, London, 1914, pp. 196 ff.). To see that this difference was fully known even to contemporaries, compare Parker’s Discourse Concerning Puritans of 1641, where the contrast to promoters and courtiers is also emphasized. ↩
On the way in which this was expressed in the politics of Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century, especially during the War of Independence, see Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment in Government, Philadelphia, 1902. ↩
Quoted in Southey, Life of Wesley, chap, XXIX (second American edition, II, p. 308). For the reference, which I did not know, I am indebted to a letter from Professor Ashley (1913). Ernst Troeltsch, to whom I communicated it for the purpose, has already made use of it. ↩
The reading of this passage may be recommended to all those who consider themselves today better informed on these matters than the leaders and contemporaries of the movements themselves. As we see, they knew very well what they were doing and what dangers they faced. It is really inexcusable to contest so lightly, as some of my critics have done, facts which are quite beyond dispute, and have hitherto never been disputed by anyone. All I have done is to investigate their underlying motives somewhat more carefully. No one in the seventeenth century doubted the existence of these relationships (compare Manley, Usury of 6 Per Cent. Examined, 1669, p. 137). Besides the modern writers already noted, poets like Heine and Keats, as well as historians like
